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Women in pink pantsuits and floral, ankle-length skirts dropped their spoons into their empty Chobani yogurt cartons and opened their phone cameras as Becky Kennedy began her keynote speech at the Mom 2.0 Summit on April 17.

Kennedy, a clinical psychologist and mom of three, needed no introduction in this crowd of mothers, caregiving brand reps and parenting influencers who gathered in Austin, Texas, to talk all things content creation, business building and motherhood. Kennedy’s parenting platform, Good Inside, has more than 100,000 paid users and her Instagram page has 3.4 million followers. If you’re a parent of kids between the ages of 2 and 8, you probably know “Dr. Becky.” She’s recently expanded into preteen, teen and baby parenting territory, further growing her following.

Wearing a baby pink cardigan and silky skirt, Kennedy looked out into the audience and spoke the words many parents think but few utter aloud: “Being a parent is remarkably inconvenient.”

She talked about the illusive and unhelpful idea of a “perfect parent” (which doesn’t exist, she noted) and said that – despite her millions of followers and daily posts – she doesn’t care much about being liked. 

The room hung on her every word.

While some people might not take the influencer world seriously, it’s undeniable that many moms in the industry are making big bucks talking online. These are career women who are often also authors, business owners, podcasters and brand marketing professionals. They’re savvy. They are using their skills to build careers and, in some cases, they’re the primary breadwinners at home, far out-earning their partners.

Monica Fabara, 43, is a former finance executive who came to the summit looking for inspiration. Before she left the corporate world three years ago, she said she judged content creators, finding them insincere and “full of themselves.” Now, she’s learning from them to grow her own business and personal brand.

“All the things that I used to criticize, now I’m like, ‘Wow. It’s amazing,'” Fabara said. “My mindset definitely shifted.”

These moms are reclaiming the image of modern motherhood

The corporate world hasn’t always been kind to modern mothers. When she was working in finance, Fabara said her son’s appendix burst and she missed some meetings; her boss called her in one day and said, “Monica, children are not an excuse.” Thilmin Gee, another mother at Mom 2.0, said her request to move a meeting once so she could breastfeed her twins was denied. She didn’t boycott the meeting, but she told her boss: “I’m not going on camera, and I’m feeding my children.” She left that job soon after and recently launched a travel startup that she posts about online.

They were told they could have it all. So why are so many moms leaving their jobs?

Tara Clark, a podcaster with 778,000 Instagram followers, said she saw the influencer industry coming from a mile away. She’d been a stay-at-home mom for about three years when Instagram started to gain traction.

“I said to my friends and family, ‘I’m going to start a parenting Instagram page, and I’m going to monetize it,'” she said. It was 2016. They didn’t understand her at first, but within a year and a half her account “exploded.” She was featured in a local magazine, wrote a book and then launched a podcast in 2022. She makes over $100,000 annually. “I just kind of had a feeling,” she said.

With their viral platforms, mom influencers are also responsible for reshaping the image of motherhood and pushing once-taboo topics like miscarriage, postpartum depression and mom guilt into the spotlight.

“We’re having conversations about maternal mental health and pregnancy loss and serious things,” Clark said. “Social media allows us to create a life where we can control our own time, control our finances and share our stories, which help other women see that their feelings are validated.”

How did we get here? Parenting has become a world of ‘trad wives’ vs. ‘girl bosses.’

Most of the mothers at the conference shirked the label “influencer” in favor of “content creator.” There’s a difference, Clark said, having to do largely with transparency.

“The trad wives make everything look so easy,” Clark said, adding that some of those women have a lot of help behind the scenes. The creators at Mom 2.0, she said, are honest about their experiences with motherhood and about the money they’re making from their content.

A sisterhood of motherhood or a battle for brand deals?

The night before her keynote address, Kennedy hosted an exclusive gathering at an Airbnb, organized as part of her partnership with the company. It was in Old Enfield, one of Austin’s historic neighborhoods on the west side of town. Guests like Paige Connell, Suzanne White and Dr. Charis Chambers were greeted with an open bar, a live pianist and singer and elegant, pale pink rose bouquet centerpieces on long tables.

Throughout the evening, Kennedy prompted her guests to share stories of early motherhood and guidance they wished they’d had as new moms. Some of the women got emotional talking about the surprising rage they felt as new mothers, the loneliness that consumed them in those early days and the “4 p.m. dread,” as Kennedy described it, when as a new mom she realized there was so much time left in the day and she was plagued by uncertainty about how her baby would sleep through the night.

It was the kind of event most of the Mom 2.0 attendees would have given anything to be at. Instead, most conference-goers were sipping cocktails, exchanging Instagram handles and practicing their elevator pitches at the summit’s official happy hour back at the conference hotel, trying to build the connections and confidence it takes to make content creation a full-time gig.

Several content creators at Mom 2.0 insisted there isn’t a strong feeling of competition among the women in the industry. But brands only have so much money to go around, said Mariam Shahab, a marketing strategist. There were dozens of brand stands on the Mom 2.0 floor hoping to sign content creators to promote strollers, kids’ snacks and juice boxes.

Because the industry is unregulated, Shahab said, there are disparities in who gets paid and how much. Some creators of color said they feel they aren’t afforded the same opportunities as their White counterparts. Others say they’ve seen brands shy away from creators who speak on controversial topics.

“There is a difference in motherhood when it comes to White mothers and Black mothers,” content creator Kendall Williams said during a panel on authenticity. “The truth of the matter is, some White women don’t have to worry about their children leaving the house at night, or in the daytime of being stopped by the police, and possibly being killed, or being racially profiled. I’m not saying that’s always the case, but we have to be realistic when it comes to our journey.”

Moms find community online by keeping it real

Plenty of moms in the industry don’t have corporate backgrounds. Emily Feret, who has 1.3 million followers on TikTok, said she fell into the momfluencing world by accident while seeking community as a new mom.

“I was looking at all these beautiful marble countertops and people dancing in slow motion with their children. I just thought, ‘Oh, no. My life does not look like that,'” she said during the authenticity panel.

Feret said she’s been posting “silly little videos” for about six years, and she’s made a full-time income for three of those years. Last year was the first time her income surpassed her husband’s salary, Feret told USA TODAY. She has a book coming out in the fall.

Cyndi Hoffer shared a similar sentiment on the panel with Feret and Williams.

“I was a stay-at-home mom, and I was lonely at home, and I’d get on the internet and I felt like nobody looked like me,” she said. “I was a plus-size mom, I was a little messy. My young motherhood was very sad.”

After looking for other moms that she could relate to and coming up empty, Hoffer said she started posting. People responded. “The Internet saved me,” she said. It also made her enough money, she said, that at this point “I could retire my husband.”

Despite it being a multi-billion dollar industry, content creators at the conference told USA TODAY they are often belittled by friends, family and commenters who don’t see the value in their videos. But those closest to them see the hard work they put into their businesses.

Kelsey Pomeroy once overheard her husband bragging about her to one of his engineering coworkers.

“I was not making a lot of money” at the time, she said. But when his coworker asked her husband what Pomeroy did for a living, he told them about her videos. “And he said, ‘Honestly, if we ever get rich, it’s going to be because of her.'”

Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.

Reach Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ on X.



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